A little bit of everything and nothing, all served up with a heaping spoonful of oops and a side of humble pie.

Monday, April 15, 2013

Nya Kuddar

If you know Swedish (or have access to Google), you already know what this post is all about. During our latest pilgrimage to the local Ikea, Phil and I finally put to rest a lingering to-do. See, when we bought our couches a couple years ago, they came with these super swell pillows:

Hopefully you can smell the sarcasm from where you're sitting. As you can see they are super bland, boring, and over the years got kind of saggy and deflated.

Our matching chair came with no pillows, so constantly felt naked and empty. (When it isn't full of our junk that we are too lazy to put in it's proper place, that is). ﻿

Even throwing one of the sad couch pillows on it didn't really do much....

While we hadn't done a ton of serious pillow shopping, it was definitely one of those things we've been constantly keeping our eyes out for. In the meantime, while we waited to find something that fit all of our joined criteria (colorful, modern, fun and comfy [as in so-comfy-I-can-put-my-drool-covered-face-on-it-and-take-a-hearty-nap comfy]), I tried an interim solution inspired by this which I came across on Pinterest a while ago. For those not feeling the need to click the link, the idea is to simply use a piece of fabric to make no-sew pillow covers by kind of wrapping the pillows in the fabric like a present. So I tried this with an old sheet we had laying around and, well, needless to say this project belongs on the "Pinterest Fail" site fo sho:﻿

It's a hot mess, as you can see. So while it was kind of nice to at least have the bland, saggy, microsuede fabric covered and to have a little color variation on the couch, it was definitely no more than a still very sad, temporary solution.

Blam-o. I love that the couch pillows are so huge - at first I was worried they were TOO huge and looked totally bizarre- but now I'm convinced it ups the fluffy-comfy factor of our couch exponentially. Just makes you wanna plop down and snuggle, doesn't it? I love the colors, and love how it ties into the ever-developing red/orange accent color scheme we now have going on in the kitchen and living room, and the added bonus of a hint of purple and a little bit of pattern on the chair pillow is super fun. Check out how nicely they tie into some of the red pops in the kitchen (forgive the poor photography, I really should have turned off that lamp before taking this shot): ﻿

And last, but not least, I love how comfy they are! Given the huge-factor and the soft, velvet fabric they are 110% nap-worthy. Here I am pretending to dream about how much I love our new pillows on our awesome new pillows.

Oh, and most importantly, Piper approves.

So there you have it, one more example of how the tiniest little thing can make a big impact on your space. Our living room looks so much more stylish, comfy and intentional now. Tack så mycket, Ikea. (Boom, you've just been Swedished.)

Lesson(s) Learned: Once again, the ever-present home improvement lesson of "patience is a virtue" has popped up. As well as the, "never underestimate the power of a tiny update" lesson. And then lastly, the lesson that the exhausting trip to Ikea is worth the tiny bit of your soul that will be sucked out in the process.

Oops Count: One, and that would be the massively failed pillow cover project. Oh well, at least it was one of those projects that didn't cost me any money, and only took about 10 minutes of my life.